Not Ignoring the Holidays

I'll admit the past couple of years I've tried my best to ignore holidays.  Move on like it's another day with no hoopla necessary.  This was not because I'm not a holiday celebrating kinda person.  Not at all!  It was because I had 6 very young children who did not get the concept of holidays, care about holidays, or were capable of any project or  behaving through an event.  So I did the minimum effort required.

But this year they have really changed between 2 1/2 and 3!  I had to step up my game.  They're starting to understand the holiday concept and enjoy activities and crafts- and especially any sort of fun food.  Between Pinterest and books, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter were full of fun!

Valentine's Day

Not my favorite holiday.  Sure, I liked it as a kid, but as an adult I just don't really care.  I have zero expectations of Dave to do anything and I'm fine with that.  But for the kids?  I wanted to do something fun this year!  Since I basically have my own preschool class, we had a class party!  We colored valentines and gorged on snacks and treats provided by one of my best helpers.  The kids had a blast!

I asked each one who their valentine was on multiple occasions leading up to Valentine's day and got a myriad of answers.  Usually it was "MawMaw PawPaw Jeanie" (my grandparents), but "baby Anna" (My friend's daughter), and randomly selected volunteers were also responses.  Dave also got in on the holiday spirit and made us heart shaped pancakes!  I made some valentine themed popcorn snack mix, and had intentions of other fun food that didn't happen.

St. Patrick's Day

This was a last minute effort.  My mom made the kids cute shamrock shirts.  I tried to theme the day with green milk, lucky charms, and a green dinner.  We also did an activity... I buried party favor junk in gold glittered green shaving cream and they got to dig around and find stuff.  Ben and Caroline enjoyed it while the others ran away as quick as they could.

Easter

Once again my mom painted fun shirts for the kids.  They loved their bunny shirts and I didn't have to search for Easter outfits.  Win win!  As much as I would love for them to already understand what Easter is all about, they're still a tad too young for it.  I think they think it's equal part Easter Bunny/eggs/candy and Jesus.  With more excitement about the Easter Bunny.

Rather than dye eggs and create a humongous mess, I opted for coloring eggs.  Hard boiled them and colored on them with crayons while still warm.  Turned out great and easy clean up!  Plus we were able to eat the eggs for lunch after they accidentally dropped them.  We had several practice egg hunts around the house and yard.  We colored egg cutouts to hang on the wall.  We made resurrection rolls from marshmallows and crescent rolls (YUM!) and read many books about Easter covering anything from the resurrection to Peter Cottontail.

I waited until the last minute on the Easter baskets.  Target was down to the slim pickins.  They received generic mini chocolate eggs, pop tarts, and big kid underwear.  They were excited about it all! haha  On Easter Sunday we visited my grandparents.  A large egg hunt was held and they found way too much candy!  Another highlight was having all of them eat with us at the big table.  They did so well and thought they were really hot stuff sitting with the adults.

Well... maybe Ben wasn't THAT excited about the underwear

As you can see, the holidays this year have been off to a fun start!  I'm sure the rest of the year won't disappoint.